James Bicknell Castle
Honolulu businessman in times of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Republic of Hawaii and Territory of Hawai
James Bicknell Castle (November 27, 1855 – April 5, 1918) was a Hawaiian businessman in the times of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Republic of Hawaii and Territory of Hawaii.
Life
James Bicknell Castle was born November 27, 1855, in Honolulu. His father was Samuel Northrup Castle (1808–1894), and mother was Mary Tenney Castle (1819–1907). He attended Punahou School 1867–1873, and then Oberlin College. He greatly expanded Castle & Cooke in the sugar and railroad industries. He is credited with winning control of the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company from Claus Spreckels in 1898, which he sold to Alexander & Baldwin for a large share of their stock. This episode resulting in a lawsuit by the former manager of the plantation, William J. Lowrie. He bought large amounts of land, such as Kaneohe Ranch.
He served as an officer in the Kingdom of Hawaii army in 1890, and was appointed to the Bureau of Immigration. In 1891 he was acting Auditor General, and Collector General of Customs from April 15, 1893, to August 31, 1897.
“James Bicknell Castle” enters the record as honolulu businessman in times of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Republic of Hawaii and Territory of Hawai. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what James, Bicknell and Castle can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 26, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6129768. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1855, 1918, 1808 and 1894.
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This entry incorporates text from “James Bicknell Castle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.